FOGBANK

 

This shit is fukkn nasty and after the weekend that just dominated my reality FOGBANK is precisely what I am looking for. Take S.H.I.T. caliber squirms then inject shirtless '80s Detroit energy and a healthy dose of ferocious Midwest basement hardcore and....well, FOGBANK are precisely what I'm looking for. "Fed Smoker" on repeat is all I want in my life today, and raw bombastic hardcore is what I need. Tomorrow I'm gonna start with "Marlboros And Molotovs" and then probably terminate existence. Because....why bother? Hardcore rules. 

[REDACTED]

FAMILY STONED

 

First off, FAMILY STONED is legit one of the coolest names I can remember hearing. Next....? FAMILY STONED are (still) one of the coolest bands I can remember hearing. Timeless early-(last)decade collage/alt on speed - hopelessly infectious and gloriously awkward except when they're perfect.  You ever hear something lazily described as "early '70 Ann Arbor meets late '80s Amherst with a tinge of sad drug addled college basement/alt" or do you read boring analytical descriptors? Just curious. "I'm not the man who wears the crown" sayeth the vocalist....and I couldn't agree more. 

DON'T BE ABOVE ME

STAND PROUD, STAND DISORDER

 

Seventeen Yogyakarta street punk bands you've (probably) never heard of unless you're from Yogyakarta. I'm not from there....hell, I've never even been there....but I have heard a fair few street punk bands in my day and I didn't know anyone on this taper until I heard this tape. So let us learn together, punks. Let's learn about PO'O'OI!, POSON OF YOUTH, S.L.S., SOUTHERN DISORDER, DIRTY CIVILIAN, PEPPERMINT and more. Let us get loud and coarse. 

STAND PROUD, STAND DISORDER

KASIDAH

 

Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî is a long form poem from the 1800s, presented here by Daniel Higgs with sonic interpretation/s by Buck Curran and Jefferson Zurna. "The Kasidah is essentially a distillation of Sufic thought in the poetic idiom of that mystical tradition." It's Thursday as I write this. 

THE KASIDAH

LOWEST PRIORITY

 

Short lived Seattle hardcore. I never saw them, didn't even know they existed until the tape fell into my lap. By the numbers, from the heart: hardcore. The riffs are there for sure, but it's the thing that you can't describe that makes LOWEST PRIORITY feel so fukkn important....and that's the thing that takes a good band and makes them special, you know?

LOWEST PRIORITY

NOISE INSIDE

 

There are so many micro-scenes that will likely remain unexamined except by serious archivists and documentarians; a reality resulting from too many pockets of punk for the greater community to dig into all of them. We're separated by geography and genre and time and it's simply not possible to go down every rabbit hole because the further you dig, the more to isolate yourself from the other rabbit holes and micro-scenes. But holy fukkn shit.....someone needs to immerse themselves in the first few waves of Indonesian DIY hardcore and punk. The context of the sounds is incredibly important and powerful, but even blasting the sounds without context will melt your face and every time I turn around there's yet another band I had never heard from a scene I knew nothing about and....and they fukkn destroy me. Enter NOISE INSIDE. This one dropped in 2002 and I swear it has not lost an ounce of intensity in the last two decades. "Police Shit" is worth the price of admission on its own, but it's the whole damn tape that gets me charged - imagine high energy DIY hardcore that delivers guttural UK crust with '80s crossover velocity and Y2K thrashcore intensity. Think about that shit. I typed the last sentence just as "My Life" kicked in and it was like "oh yeah, all of that shit plus raging Japanese HC" and now all I can think about is the Killed By Indonesian Hardcore comp that need to exist. So yeah, try to have a Monday that leads to a week of some kind of life knowing that this tape exists and no one knows about it.....and good luck.

EXPLODE

THE DAMNED

I've always tried to be pretty open about my relationship with the classics. With the traditional starter bands. Part of it was geography and general exposure, but really I just started down some different rabbit holes in a pre-internet world and I knew about punk for a good five years before I really had anyone to bounce ideas and discoveries off of or network with - and by the time I met those people, many had moved on from punk and were more interested in the burgeoning grunge and college indie scene/s. They wanted to talk about the new SPACEMEN 3 record, not the Legless Bull EP they hadn't pulled out since they were a teenager. As a result, I missed some shit along the way - but I really missed the UK standards. Aside from the SEX PISTOLS album my cousin bought me on a visit in '86 I didn't know shit about UK SUBS, SHAM 69, EDDIE & THE HOT RODS, CRASS (or any anarcho punk for that matter), 999, CHELSEA....none of it. I copped the first Punk And Disorderly on a trip to Tulsa because it had mohawks on it, but I wouldn't find out until years later that DISORDER and BLITZ and VICE SQUAD were connected to larger scenes (and had volumes of material that would have blown my mind). I don't think that kind of 'discovery" (or lack of discovery) is even possible in a post-internet punk reality, but the relics of The Breadcrumb Era are still lurking, and I still get excited when I come across one...like this. 

THE DAMNED - PEEL SESSIONS (1976/77) // LIVE 1977

These tapes changed the game for the creators and the recipients and I feel like I'm discovering THE DAMNED all over again as an average middle aged man when I listen. Tracks from the Dodgy Demo, live from the London Roundhouse and both CBGB's sets in April 1977, plus Peel Sessions recording in November 1976  and May 1977. This band was absolutely screaming...but most of you already knew that. I was just a little late to the party, and that's okay.